Economy of Morocco - Services

Services

Services, including government and military expenditures, account for about one-fourth of Morocco's GDP. Government spending alone, despite an ongoing effort on the part of the government to sell much of its assets to private concerns, accounts for fully half of the service economy. Since the mid-1980s tourism and associated services have been an increasingly significant sector of the Moroccan economy and by the late 1990s had become the country's largest source of foreign currency. During that time the Moroccan government committed significant resources — by way of loans and tax exemptions — to the development of the tourist industry and associated services. The government also made direct capital investments in the development of the service sector, but since the early 1990s it has begun to divest itself of these properties. Several million visitors enter Morocco yearly, most of them from Europe. Tourists also arrive from Algeria, the United States, and East Asia, mainly Japan.